Why The Evil Dead is the ultimate Halloween horror movie

Director Eli Roth is currently at work on his remake of the 1974 vigilante thriller Death Wish. But the man who brought us the Cabin Fever and Hostel franchises remains a stalwart fan of the horror genre in which he made his filmmaking bones (an appropriate metaphor given he is the man who also brought us 2013’s cannibal movie Green Inferno).

So, what film does Roth regard as the ultimate Halloween watch? The answer is Sam Raimi’s 1981 horror classic, The Evil Dead.

“Usually, when I’m having a party, I put on the original Evil Dead,” says Roth. “Right from the opening shot, it never stops. It’s one of those movies that everybody loves. It’s always fun. It’s so visually spectacular. I don’t know if people would still be scared by it, the way I was, but if you think about Sam Raimi, that it was made by a 20-year-old kid, or a 21-year-old kid, in the woods with his friends, and they just spent all their money doing it, and they nearly froze to death — the camerawork that he did, putting a camera on his back, strapping it to a motorcycle, it’s so inventive. I think a lot of people have seen the remake but they haven’t seen the original. You can’t go wrong with it.”

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